Launched in 2014 by the initiative of CYLAD Consulting and the Toulouse Aerospace Doctoral School, the Aero-Pharma roundtable met for the fifth time in
Toulouse on 7 March 2017.

The roundtable brings together Toulouse-based aerospace and pharmaceutical companies, including Pierre Fabre Laboratories, Evotec, Merial, Airbus, Safran, and Zodiac, as well as representatives of the academic community (ISAE andUniversity of Toulouse).

Presentations by Olivier Casamitjana, SVP Compound Management at Evotec, and Sébastien Sivignon, VP Airbus Development team at Zodiac Aerospace, opened the proceedings and fed exchanges, during which participants compared their experiences, identified common stakes and constraints, and shared good practices on innovation partnerships.

Several key ideas emerged from the session:
• Partnerships enable increased risk and cost sharing.
• They also are an opportunity to identify and develop new business models, speed up innovation, and make market access possible for start-ups and small businesses.
• Successful partnerships depend primarily on the human factor, regardless of the efficiency and strength of processes and organizations. Avoiding well-known biases (e.g. “Not Invented Here” syndrome) help to build a relationship of mutual trust. This takes time, to understand and align work methods and the expectations of each partner.

During the plenary session, CYLAD Consulting initiated a cycle of work groups on the theme of partnerships, which promises to be fruitful: “The exchanges were very beneficial, confirming the convergence of situations and analysis and, at the same time, expanding the scope of thinking” François BRACKMAN, Head of Development Platform at Pierre Fabre Laboratories.